One librarian's journey through books and life! All types of books will be read and reviewed.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Allegiant by Veronica Roth (NO SPOILERS!)

I finished this book the day after it was released. I had been anxiously awaiting its arrival; annoying everyone in my family by counting the days. Its taken me a week to formulate and digest my thoughts enough to be able to write this review.

Let me start by saying I LOVED Divergent! I thought the characters were well developed. For a middle book in a trilogy, Insurgent was better than most.

I did not like Allegiant.

My dislike is not based at on the twist ending. I enjoy stories that surprise me. An ending that is not your typical happy ending or even an ending that I disagree with makes me think and analyze and question.My dislike is solely based on the writing.

The choice to write from alternate points of view is tricky and Roth did not do it well. The voice of each character did not shine through. I very often found myself having to re-check the beginning of each chapter to see whose POV it was. There was no distinguishing voice between Tris and Tobias.

I also felt the writing was boring. The short sentences that flowed so well and were so engaging in the previous two books, fell short in this one. There was not flow to the story and it seemed very repetitive and dull. The word choice was basic and boring.

The story itself was repetitive, uprise-share the truth-overthrow, and the plot twist at the beginning involving the United Comonwealth was very contrived. I found myself muttering, "Are you kidding me?!?" many times.

I am disappointed that such an anticipated novel was such a spectacular disaster. My disappointment had me asking many questions. Were the first two books flukes? Did the popularity of the first two go to her head? Was she too focused on the making of the movie? Did she want to distance herself from the wildly popular series? Did Roth actually write this book???

Whatever the answers, I know that I cannot recommend this book to anyone. With that being said, when I am advising on what great books to read, I will still recommend Divergent and Insurgent. I will tell readers that making up what happens next is all the fun of reading.

As of now, I am referring to Allegiant as The Book That Must Not Be Named.